Sunday, June 7, 2009

A wise old mule fell into a farmer's well. Well what kind of wise mule falls into a well? An old one with cataracts you see. The farmer came in from the fields and noticed his mule in the well and his heart went out to him. But, the sympathy soon relaxed into complacency. He decided that neither the mule nor the well were worth saving. He called his workers over and instructed them to fill the well in with dirt. They did and soon the mule's back was covered with dirt. His ankles were buried. So this is how it would end thought the mule. He prepared to meet his maker, but then a new thought: what if I shake the dirt off my back and step up? With each new shovel full of dirt, the mule shook it off and stepped up. After a few hours, the old mule reached the top of the well, battered and exhausted. Still, he climbed out triumphantly before the bemused workers. He walked right passed the farmer and gave him a kind but knowing look. The mule had learned something new: What seemed like it would bury him actually gave him the strength to live. His refusal to see problems negatively, no matter how painful or distressing they were, gave him the power to rise out of his predicament. Shake it off and step up.

This site is generally about our visceral, inexplicable, and sometimes ecstatic connection to animals and/or artistic representations of animals. It attempts to understand what animals mean to us both as living creatures and as powerful symbols that reach deep into our mind's eye and shape many aspects of our own consciousness.

Anthroporphism is something we seem biologically programed to do. As humans, we are prone to sentimentalize objects, ideas, and of course, animals to fit our perceptual, behavioral, and emotional apparatus. Since we can never fully comprehend the inner life of an animal, how shall we treat their "otherness" as we share life on Earth together? With respect to be certain. Still, we are left with our own skewed and humanized impressions, which manifest over and over in our culture - powerful reminders of our chosen "departure" from the nature and our animal cousins.